I feel like I'm being lied to

[perryxcore]

yes substrate (live sand) is orifinal, is it recommended/good practice to change this out after a certain period of time?

 

[cdness]

I'd say change up the RO you are using. Just some food for thought, RODI is the cleanest you can use, Distilled is next and plain RO is the third cleanest. Try using Distilled wter if you don't have your own RODI available. If the issue starts to calm down, you've found the culprit.

 

[_Alex_]

yes substrate (live sand) is orifinal, is it recommended/good practice to change this out after a certain period of time?

yes it can, i had a buddy with a 10yrd old tank and crushed coral substrate, he could not keep his water params in check and had HORRIBLE ALGAE problems of all kinds. i finally talked him into tearign the tank down and putting in a sand substrate and some more live rock and his tank is doign awesome now.

substrate when not properly aerated and cleaned reguraly can cause mass problems of leaching out nitrates and feeding the algae. your test kits will read 0 becuase the algae is consuming it as fast as its being put out.

 

[aquafrags]

Invest in a good ro/di system and use it for top off and water changes and the algae will go away

good skimming
set you lighting to only 6 hrs a day
feed your clown evry other day

do you make your own saltwater or get it from the fishstore?

 

[perryxcore]

saltwater comes from the fish store and they use seachem to make their water. Like I said as soon as I get back home I'll have the LFS check the RO water, I dont quite have money for a ro/di unit for home but I could at least switch to using the LFS RO/DI if the tests come back poor on the other brand

 

[CJO]

In the long term, it is much more cost effective to get your own RO/DI unit to make your own topoff and salt water than it is to buy from the LFS and walmart. Do you ever clean it?

CJ

 

[perryxcore]

I clean the glass, powerheads, change out filters, and water changes

 

[Y-Diver]

I had luck with dosing a product called Algaefix to get rid of some GHA that had started in my tank. This is only a band aid to the problem and not a solution but may help get it under control while you are adjusting your other things that people have already mentioned such as photo-period, flow, & RO/DI water. A TDS meter is only $25 or so online and can really be an eye opener to what water you put in your tank.

Tyler

 

[jski711]

I could almost guarantee your problem is stemming from the water you are buying from the store. I would highly doubt it is 0 tds.

 

[perryxcore]

the water turns out to have 7 TDS which my lfs says isnt to bad, what are your thoughts? i went ahead with another 7 g wtervchnge and manual picking of the algae

 

[cdness]

Well if it means anything, I change out my DI cartridge when the water hits 2 TDS, that is assuming I didn't change it at 1.

7 isn't very good honestly. Much better than tap water but nowhere near what you can get with a good RODI system.

 

[nixer]

7 isnt real bad, but its not very good either especially for a reef.

 

[viper1972]

Shut your lights off for a couple days. Your coral will be fine. Make sure the sun is not hitting your tank at all and cut back on all feeding and additives and it will get better.

 

[barbianj]

Aren't you paying for zero TDS water?

 

[Demonic]

I found the best way to do away with algae is bumping up your magnesium to about 1500 ppm. But you first need to find out why you originally got it because it wall always come back if you dont find the culprit.

 

[perryxcore]

So I've gone ahead and left the lights off for 3 days and have changed 7 gallons out and picked handfuls of algae, we will see how it looks tomorrow and if it hasn't improved maybe I'll look at changing the sand, that just seems like such a crazy unnecessary task

 

[ScottyMcReefer]

I wouldn't change sand bro. I went through AWFUL algae stage. All i did was upgraded my protein skimmer and added phosphate media. Worked like a charm. I feel I was getting "fake" RO water cause algae started dying off when I started mixing my own H2O.

Sent from Scottys HTC Evo 4g

 

[ScottyMcReefer]

Keep in mind. I had Perfect parameters when I had this out break. My tank was so bad i hated looking at it!

Sent from Scottys HTC Evo 4g

 

[perryxcore]

Thanks Scotty, that's where I'm at right now too, I added Che iLife which attacks phosphates and nitrates an ammonia, it's a 30g biocube with probably 28-32 pounds of liverock which gives it realistically on 20-25 gallons of water so I don't think I really need a protein skimmer, what do you think?

 

[Neon Reef]

IN MY EXPERIENCE, nuisance algae has ALWAYS been due to either bad ro/di water (could be bad saltwater due to mixing with bad ro/di water) or over-feeding and not enough filtration/water changes, which ultimately cause phosphates/nitrates to go through the roof in a tank.